By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Coast To Coast Carpet Of Love When it comes to songwriting, Robert Pollard fears not running the gamut. He’s had a go at rock, pop, psych, punk, and just about everything in-between, including ballads. Today we’ll take a look at the guitar tablature for one of his truly beautiful compositions, […]
Tag: Robert Pollard
Moses On A Snail
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Moses On A Snail For the guitar parts in this transcription of “Moses On A Snail,” there is really only chord strumming. There are a couple of parts that you could maybe call “riffs,” but even those are chord-based. There is some lead guitar work going on during the Todd […]
Kingdom Without
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: From A Compound Eye In “Kingdom Without,” Robert Pollard builds a powerful tune using some of his most relied upon guitar techniques: open string drones and arpeggios. As much as I love every other part of this song, however, I think I’d have to say that my favorite part is […]
Promo Brunette
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Of Course You Are “Promo Brunette” is a fascinating specimen of a Robert Pollard song to dissect. It consists almost entirely of verses, each of which begins the same and ends differently. It’s almost as if Pollard had a chord progression laid out for a verse but couldn’t decide how […]
Your Rate Will Never Go Up
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: We All Got Out Of The Army “Your Rate Will Never Go Up” features a chugging rhythm guitar during the intro, verse, and outro, and a middle section that uses a pedal point through a couple of its chord progressions. You need to be logged in to view the rest […]
Dunce Codex
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Lord Of The Birdcage With the Hot Freaks digital subscription, we got to hear the “roughs” from Lord Of The Birdcage—all the songs from the album, but with just Robert Pollard’s vocal and guitar tracks. These provide clear audio of Pollard’s isolated guitar parts, which make the job of learning […]
Little Pigs
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Of Course You Are The demo version of “Little Pigs” is on Suitcase Four: Captain Kangaroo Won The War with the title “I Can Never Let You Win.” This version lets you clearly hear Robert Pollard’s use of open string drone riffs in the song. For the version recorded for […]
Stay Away
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Space City Kicks The guitar riff at the beginning and end of “Stay Away” features an oft-used technique of Robert Pollard’s. You’ll play a melody using various frets of the sixth string while letting the fifth string ring open with every note. Other than that riff, you’ll use chord strumming […]
A Flowering Orphan
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: From A Compound Eye “A Flowering Orphan” features a gorgeous string synth arrangement by Todd Tobias as the main instrument—it’s the kind of song that makes me forget that Robert Pollard originally wrote it on guitar. After hearing his demo for this song (released as part of the Hot Freaks […]
Supernatural Car Lover
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Normal Happiness In terms of song structure, “Supernatural Car Lover” is pretty much all over the place. Especially after listening to Robert Pollard’s demo (made available via the Hot Freaks digital subscription), I get the impression this song was very much a “stream of consciousness” kind of composition, where he […]
